Pop-up shop business founded by UCL graduates raises £420,000 investment

9 September 2013

We Are Pop Up, the community
marketplace that connects brands and businesses with short-term retail
properties in the UK, has raised further funding of £420,000 led by venture
capital company Arts Alliance with participation from UCL.

With one in seven shops on the UK’s
High Street currently lying vacant, We Are Pop Up allows potential tenants to
find available locations for short term shops, restaurants, art projects and
one off events, while giving landlords an efficient way to access a fast
growing source of new tenants.

The business was founded by two UCL
postgraduates along with a colleague from the University of Oxford.

Since launching in 2012, more than
1,400 businesses and brands have applied to run over 900 projects in over 100
commercial spaces around the UK. The company now has over 3,500 registered
users with a cross section of businesses signed

up, from small Internet
entrepreneurs to large multinational corporations.

There are over 120 properties currently
available on the platform, provided by leading operators like BOXPARK
Shoreditch; large commercial landlords including Cushman and Wakefield and
Jones Lang Lasalle; and local regeneration teams like Brighton & Hove City
Council, and Camden Town Unlimited, Camden’s Business Improvement District.

Sites vary from local collaboration
spaces, shipping containers and independent shops to traditional units at
shopping centres in London, Birmingham and other UK cities. Examples of tenants
so far include artists setting up temporary galleries, restaurateurs trying out
new concepts, and online-only retailers creating temporary locations for
consumers to sample new product lines or pick up purchases.

“The line between online and offline
commerce has disappeared, challenging the real estate industry to change how
they think about letting space,” said Nicholas Russell, CEO at We Are Pop Up.
“There’s a huge amount of under-utilised space in the UK, which we estimate
could be generating at least £40 billion of revenue for the retail industry a
year.We Are Pop Up enables communities to fill their own shops, showcase local
talent and reverse the High Street’s demise.

“For small businesses, pop-ups offer
the capability for ‘lean-retail’, a stripped-down, faster and more efficient
way to launch ideas in space. For large businesses, pop-ups facilitate new
consumer experiences with much lower risk,” he added.

and
we are delighted that this disruptive company was started by two recent UCL
postgraduate students and their Oxford colleague,” added Timothy Barnes,
Director of UCL Advances, the university’s centre for entrepreneurship.